SkyDrive Explorer is a free, easy-to-use, but very powerful extension for Windows Explorer. With SkyDrive Explorer you can make any every-day operations with your documents from Microsoft Live SkyDrive™ service using Windows Explorer, as if they were on your computer.
Check it out at http://skydriveexplorer.com/
Stephen Cummins the founder of the SharePoint User Group Ireland (SUGI) will be giving a introduction to SharePoint 2010. This will be a great forum to ask questions about the forth coming SharePoint release.
Date / Time: 11th November 2009 @ 7pm
Venue: Radisson Hotel on Golden Lane Dublin
If like me you’ve recently updated to Windows 7 (which generally I find a real improvement over Vista) you may have difficulties downloading products from the MSDN site using the Microsoft MSDN File Transfer Manager (TFM). Now I have to be honest I’m not sure if this is an issue with Windows 7 or Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). My gut feeling is it is a issue with IE8. Either way if you are having issues downloading files from the MSDN download site, then you need to manually download and install it from:
Microsoft MSDN File Transfer Manager
Also if your Corporate Group Policy requires you to have Administrative privileges to install ActiveX controls then you can use the above link to download and install.
There is an alternative download manager from Akamai, for those not using Internet Explorer or FireFox on Windows:
Note: FTM is implemented as an ActiveX control and is a 32-bit application, so you may need to run your 64-bit browser in 32-bit mode.
More information can be found on the File Transfer Manager Help pages.
If like me you where not privileged enough to go to the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas, then there is an opportunity to attend a Free Virtual Conference on the 5th November. Now I’ve never been to a virtual conference before, but the agenda look extremely interesting.
You can register at http://www.sharepointvcx.com/
The Public Beta for SharePoint 2010 is being made available in November this year. Make sure you pre-register so that you get notified of when it is available and get the download details. You can register here.
Microsoft opened SharePoint 2010 up to the public today at the SharePoint Conference 2009. With the announcement of the public beta being available in November 2009, they have made some resources available in preparation. The SharePoint Team Site offer the following resources:
- SharePoint 2010 Website – to view SharePoint 2010 in action
- SharePoint 2010 forum- for SharePoint 2010 questions
- SharePoint 2010 PressPass- for the SPC 2009 keynote video, a Q&A with Jeff Teper…
- SharePoint 2010 Developer Centre – for developer info
- http://www.mssharepointitpro.com – for IT Pro info
- http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint – for more SharePoint information
I’m sure there will be a plethora of information around 2010 over the next couple of weeks as the MVP community privileged to get a early beta copy, tear up the NDA which, has been keeping them silent and are let loose publish all their findings. Personally I can’t wait!
The guys from the SharePoint Pod Show have recently launched a Q&A site called SharePoint Overflow which will not only allow the community to help solve SharePoint Dev, Admin, users Issues, but will also help provide content for their show. Well done guys!
http://www.sharepointoverflow.com/
p.s. PinkPetrol I’m liking the suggestion for the logo.
Ok, so there are loads of these sort of blogs already out there, but hey thought I’d let you know the suite of tools that I’ve added to my arsenal. All these tools should help make your SharePoint life allot easier… they definitely save me a load of headaches over the years. Thanks to all the community folks for developing these tools, with out them our lives would be a lot harder.
| SharePoint Inspector |
SharePoint Inspector is a free tool to browse your SharePoint 2007 farm. You can see objects composing its structure, get their properties by reflection, which can be very useful when you want to check if your code does what it should do. |
| CAML.NET IntelliSense |
The purpose of this project is to extend the raw WSS xsd to include annotated documentation taken from the SharePoint SDK so that developers don’t have to break their train of thought while they go searching for information about each element. Thanks to John Holliday for providing this. |
| U2U CAML Query Builder |
The tool will help you build, test and execute your CAML Queries. This version of the tool only let you build CAML queries for execution against lists. Thanks to those Belgium guys at U2U. |
| .Net Reflector |
This is something that should be in any .Net developer tool box. .NET Reflector enables you to easily view, navigate, and search through, the class hierarchies of .NET assemblies, even if you don’t have the code for them. With it, you can decompile and analyze .NET assemblies in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. |
|
BDC Meta Man is the first Business Data Catalog tool for all SharePoint Developers and Administrators interested in line of business data integration with SharePoint. Without writing a single line of code you can be viewing and searching across your business data through Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in minutes. This is a great tool provided by the guys from Lightening Tools. The free to download version gives you some limited functionality. Nick Swan and Brett Lonsdale the cofounders of Lightening tools have also produced a great book on the BDC “SharePoint 2007 Developer’s Guide to Business Data Catalog”. They can also be heard on the Excellent SharePoint Pod Show with co-host Rob Foster. Definitely check it out. |
|
| WSPBuilder |
A SharePoint Solution Package (WSP) creation tool for WSS 3.0 & MOSS 2007 Carsten Keutmann you’re a legend… what more can I say! |
| SharePoint Manager 2007 |
The SharePoint Manager 2007 is a SharePoint object model explorer. It enables you to browse every site on the local farm and view every property. It also enables you to change the properties (at your own risk). This is a very powerful tool for developers that like to know what the SharePoint holds of secrets. Another great tool from Carsten Keutmann. |
| Fiddler |
Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. |
| AppPool Manager | Neat little tool from Spencer Harbar. |
| SPSource |
SPSource is a tool for SharePoint developers to assist in the creation of WSS Solution Packages (WSPs) allowing for the use SharePoint Designer and the SharePoint web UI to make quick changes to items, then push those items into Visual Studio for later compilation into a WSP. Thanks to Jeremy Thake. |
| STSAdm Extensions | A must have suite of STSAdm commands from Gary Lapointe. Great for those SharePoint Administrators out there. |
| SPTraceView |
SPTraceView analyses in real time the ULS trace messages coming from all MOSS components and can notify you using a balloon-style tray bar messages when something of interest happens. |
| SP Dispose Checker Tool |
SPDisposeCheck is a tool to help you to check your assemblies that use the SharePoint API so that you can build better code. It provides assistance in correctly disposing of certain SharePoint objects to help you follow published best practice. |
| SharePoint Installer |
This project is a Windows application for an eased and more user friendly installation and deployment of SharePoint 2007 solution files to a SharePoint server farm. Distribute your SharePoint solution files with this installation program instead of a raw script using STSADM.EXE to install and deploy the solution. |
| SharePoint Search Service Tool |
The SharePoint Search Service Tool is a rich web service client that allows a developer to explore the scopes and managed properties of a given SharePoint Search SSP, build queries in either Keyword or SQL Syntax, submit those queries and examine the raw web service results. This tool can be useful in troubleshooting and verifying the behaviour and configuration of a SharePoint environment. |
| CodeRush |
CodeRush for Visual Studio® .NET will help you create sophisticated code blocks in seconds and extend code templates instantly. CodeRush will complete identifiers as you type and expand or contract selections logically. With CodeRush, you will be able to instantly place selected code inside Try/Catch blocks, Regions and your own custom wrappers with ease. |
| ReSharper |
ReSharper provides solution-wide error highlighting on the fly, instant solutions for found errors, over 30 advanced code refactorings, superior unit testing tools, handy navigation and search features, single-click code formatting and cleanup, automatic code generation and templates, and a lot more productivity features for C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, XML, and XAML. |
| SharePoint Skinner | Helps you define the theme css for your custom SharePoint sites. |
| Visual Round Trip Analyser |
The Visual Round Trip Analyzer tool helps web developers and testers visualize the download of their page, identify best practices and changes that improve web performance. The network Round-Trip between the client and server(s) is the single biggest impact to web page performance – much greater than server response time. |
| YSlow | YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. |
This even I was clean up one of my external USB drives when I encountered an error trying to delete some directories. As it transpires some of the files and directories within the folder I was trying to delete had invalid names, which was preventing the files from being deleted.
I tried to delete the files using the dos command del *.* but this gave the same error.
I tried Malwarebytes “File Assassin“ tool, but this too failed.
After a some googling I found the answer… you need to run chkdsk /f on the folder location that is giving you the error.
When presented with the option to Convert Folder to File select Yes.
When presented with the option to Convert Lost Chains to File select Yes.
I hope that this will save you some time if you get the same issue as I encountered. Admittedly I still am unsure as to what may have caused the file names to have been become corrupted. My theory is an error occurred while changing a file name from the Long File Names format to it’s 8.3 File Name format.
I’ve had a HUAWEI E160G modem from Three Ireland for a while now. I’ve not had a need to use over the last couple of months. When I reconnected the modem to my laptop I kept getting an error The device has been disconnected or is unavailable.
After a number of frustrating phone calls to technical support and a visit to a three shop, was still experiencing the problem. The technical support basically said that they would not be able to resolve my issue and that it was obviously something wrong with my pc. Well OK, we did establish that the modem was not faulty by getting it to work on the shops computer, but you’d think that the tech support would know how to resolve compatibility issues with there own product and windows. The shop assistant was more helpful than the tech support who basically only know how to follow scripts. Anyway enough ranting!
I was able to solve the issue myself by a little trial and error. Hopefully this may help you, but please be aware that you must fully understand what you are doing to carry out the fix, and that I take no responsibility for your system if the solution does not work for you.
Now these steps worked for me but I cannot guarantee that they will work for you. I spent a fair amount of time getting this to work, and repeated a number of these steps, but the above should be the bare minimum required as basically you’re removing all references to the modem so it’s like a vanilla installation.